Modern oil well drilling technology has become extremely sophisticated, complex and high cost. Modern oil well drillers can reach depths which in the recent past would be unimaginable. In addition, complex drilling apparatus enables oil well drillers to drill at angles or exercise turns deep in the earth to drill in a given direction either horizontally, obliquely or vertically. Despite the extreme complexity of modern drilling apparatus, the basics of the procedure has remained relatively straight forward.
In an oil well drilling operation, a drill head is powered downwardly from the well site into the earth and is supported by a plurality of drill pipe segments typically referred to as “drill pipes”. The drill pipe segments include male and female ends which facilitate serially coupling the drill pipe segments to form extended strings of drill pipe. A drill rig on the surface at the well site controls and powers the drilling operation and as the drill head advances, successive segments of drill pipe which are often called “sticks” are added to the drill pipe string.
With ever deeper drilling and the capability of vertical, angled and/or horizontal drilling paths, the extent of distance covered in any drilling operation becomes substantial. As the drill head advances, the number of drill pipes joined to drive and support the drill head in a typical operation reaches hundreds or even thousands of drill pipe segments. In this environment, failure of one drill pipe in the extended serial string of segments results in substantial loss of time and money. In order to replace the failed drill pipe much of the drill pipe string must be withdrawn by the well drilling rig segment by segment to extract and replace the failed pipe. Once the failed pipe has been replaced, the entire string must again be reassembled and lowered into the well hole segment by segment. This process is extremely expensive and time wasting.
Faced with the daunting economic impact of drill pipe failure, practitioners in the well drilling arts endeavor to make every effort to ensure that each drill pipe used is in sound condition and has not suffered fatigue, corrosion or physical damage such as minute cracking or overstraining in prior use. Toward this end, practitioners employ trained and certified inspectors (often called “level three” inspectors) to examine each drill pipe for level one compliance before the drill pipe is used.
The basic problem in the oil well arts is that the number of drill pipes in existence is enormous and drill pipes are transferred throughout the system among successive user's. In addition, a substantial number of pipe manufacturers provide drill pipes. Accordingly, a typical well operator will have large numbers of drill pipe on the premises which have been received from multiple sources and which have moved throughout the oil drilling industry in some instances being transferred between several operators. As such, the typical well operator is faced with utilizing a substantial number of drill pipes each having a “history” which is difficult if not impossible to determine by examination of the drill pipe. Thus, for each drill pipe, the extent and character of its previous use as well as other critical factors such as the number of reconditioning processes it has received cannot be determined and raises an element of uncertainty and potential risk for the well operator. As a result, despite the use of the above-mentioned level three inspectors, a well operator is unable to assess these other elements in determining whether or not a particular drill pipe is truly suitable for use.
Accordingly, despite substantial efforts and expertise applied to physical examination of drill pipes prior to use, there remains nonetheless a continuing need in the art for a method and apparatus which facilitate the determination of the manufacturer, history of use, history of reconditioning operations and other factors effecting the reliability of a given drill pipe which practitioners in the well drilling arts may utilize in decisions regarding pipe use.